Ask a first-year cadet at the Korea Military Academy who Korea’s main enemy is, and the answer might surprise you. Or maybe not:
A poll shows that 34 percent of first-year army cadets called the United States the main enemy of South Korea, a former superintendent of the Korea Military Academy (KMA) said.
Kim Choong-bae, president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, disclosed a past survey of 250 KMA entrants to single out “the country’s main enemy” while serving as the military academy’s superintendent in 2004.
Kim was quoted by a newspaper as saying, “While the majority ― or 34 percent ― picked the U.S., 33 percent said they regarded North Korea as the main enemy.”
He said the result was unbelievable, stressing the respondents were those who were supposed to be military officers. The KMA did not make the result public during the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which ended last February.
Kim blamed the education system, which, the Korea Times noted, also led 75% of draftees to have anti-American feelings:
Citing his meeting with the 250 cadet freshmen, the military expert argued that the hostile sentiment against the “ally” is due to “inappropriate” education in schools.
In addition, according to a survey of a group of conscripted soldiers conducted by the Ministry of Defense, about 75 percent of them said they have anti-U.S. sentiment.
The Chosun Ilbo and Munhwa Ilbo were disconcerted enough to run editorials on it. Also interesting was that only 36% of new recruits believed liberal democracy was superior to communism. This Chosun, of course, also took the time to rattle off similar poll results, namely, the 2003 Gallop Korea poll in which only 31% of South Koreans called the Korean War an “invasion by the North”; a 2004 poll in which the United States topped North Korea as the biggest threat to Korean security, 39% to 33%; and a 2005 Gallup Korea poll of Koreans ages 16—25 in which 65% said that if a war were to break out between North Korea and the United States, they would help North Korea.
The Chosun ended true to form:
North Korea is a nation where the people are starving to death in mass. That sort of nation has placed cannons on the DMZ capable of firing countless shells an hour at Seoul. It unreasonably made even nuclear bombs. It goes without saying what the reason was. It’s also clear that the nation that protected us amidst this threat and helped us the most to grow into a mid-ranked power with a GDP per capita of US$20,000 was the United States.
Our former ministers, TV broadcasters and the Korea Teachers Union reversed these facts and truths. We must from now remove this poison.
The Chosun smells blood, that’s for sure.
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
This is why the Sunshine Policy was a bad thing! If you don’t tell people about the atrocities happening up north they won’t know! And then they think its not so bad. I mean, there’s the Mass Games up north, and a benevolent father figure, and no evil foreigners polluting the pure Koreanness of the air.
GAH.
Time to go. Let the fuckin place stand on its own two damn feet and defend itself.
The completely ignorant/naive pro-north, anti-US education system is really rearing its ugly head!
Maybe this can be another thing 2MB can turn around.
Unbelievable…Little Kim himself couldn’t have scripted better results if he were running SK. Kudos to the thousands of ‘sleeper propagandists’ working their magic throughout the South.
Meanwhile the Korean upper class continues to Americanize itself at a rapid rate. If things continue this way there’ll be a cultural gap in Korea between the rich and the poor like something out of Imperial Russia (where the upper class really embraced foreign culture wholesale without being occupied by another country).
I would hate to be a US soldier here in a time of war.. they wouldn’t know who was firing at them.
sad. i agree with 1 and 3.
Amazing how information filtered through the educational system could breed such thinking…
How long as it been going on?… 10-15 years… perhaps since Kim Young Sam?
This is no surprise. I’ve already spoken to people here who have already mentioned this and it was apparent that democracy is still a recent invention and that some parties believe that the mindset of many younger Koreans are malleable enough to shape a unified Korea that is quite different from what we see today in the South.
Oddly enough “Saxiif” has mentioned a notion of inter-class conflict that is not too far-fetched, especially if a housing price bust were to occur and banks started feeling the direct effects of such. I wonder what Dr. Lankov would say of this comparison to Czarist Russia though.
Bah, how was question formulated? Did it ask them to define to which degree they are pro or anti-American? Forget about the shades of grey, right?
34% + 33% = 67% So who’s the other 33%?
Also, given that this school is training the future military leaders of the ROK, I would think they’d be slightly more selective as to who their students are… make it part of the entrance exam or something.
“34% + 33% = 67% So who’s the other 33%?”
J…a…p…a…
Either the question wasn’t as extreme as “Who’s our main enemy?” (like “which country do you dislike most?”), or there is a serious problem here.
Forget the anti-Americanism for a moment here. It makes no sense. – even if they think Americans are dicks and George W. Bush is the devil (… Okay, I’ll give them the latter), how the hell does that translates to ‘enemies’? Even if they disagree with American troop presence in Korea, how does that mean America = enemy?
Methinks backwhip went too far and hit someone in the eye… and is now involved in a nasty civil lawsuit.
Apparently, they were asked which nation was Korea’s jujeok. At which point, he should have waited for the student to answer and said, “Silly cadet, the Ministry of Defense says we don’t have a jujeok!”
1. I’m surprised Japan didn’t score higher as the “main enemy”.
2. I’m NOT surprised the US and North Korea are both at the top of the list of “main enemies”. They’d also be at the top of a list of “which countries are our closest friends?”
In my experience, most young Koreans can’t name many more countries than these. “Um…. Paris? Africa?”
Yeah, blame the teachers union! Wait .. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17474900/
No, blame Canada!
Those are stats for Koreans in Korea. I wonder what the stats would be for Korean-Americans.
Amazing that these people agitate for visa-free entrance to the U.S. while hating us. Hypocrites.
Soooo….is there a reason this alliance still exists, other than to place American soldiers in harms way for the sake of people who despise them, defending against a nation which they apparently wouldn’t mind being conquered by (at least until such time as our ultra-nationalist heroes figure out what it’s actually like living in Kimland)?
Seriously. I wish the depth and absurdity of this crap received more attention in the United States so that there would be pressure to pull the plug on the whole damn thing. Even if you’re not in favor of ending the alliance, that pressure might result in a sudden realization in South Korea that the constant, irrational anti-Americanism actually may have actual consequences, which might do something to reform their attitude.
Ingrates.
If only the USA could be like China and throw a temper tantrum every time someone “hurt the pride of the Chinese people” and cut off trade links, diplomatic links, etc.
That would be sweet.
Janus: If only the USA could be like China and throw a temper tantrum every time someone “hurt the pride of the Chinese people” and cut off trade links, diplomatic links, etc.
Those aren’t tantrums. When Zimbabwe threatens to cut off trade links, diplomatic links, etc, that’s a tantrum. When a neighboring country with the largest military and the third largest economy in the world threatens it, that’s an exercise of raw power. Weak countries throw tantrums, whereas strong countries rearrange the furniture.
This gives a whole new twist to the term “Frenemies”.
I don’t have a link, but I recall reading about South Korean military officials or government officials proposing asking cadet applicants about their attitudes towards North Korea and the US. I wonder if the idea was a reaction to the poll results.
Me thinks that a whole generation that’s spent most of their non-studying hours zapping Zergs and Terrans in the wee hours of the morning have somehow developed a warped sense of reality…
“Frenemies” is a great synthetic term, “Netizen”.
I will remember that one.
Maybe a mandatory bus trip to Kaesung is in order. Or a chance to talk to North Koreans. These guys should get a real taste of life in the North before they reach a conclusion.
“I wish the depth and absurdity of this crap received more attention in the United States so that there would be pressure to pull the plug on the whole damn thing. Even if you’re not in favor of ending the alliance, that pressure might result in a sudden realization in South Korea that the constant, irrational anti-Americanism actually may have actual consequences, which might do something to reform their attitude.”
The survey was from 2004 and the country has since elected a pro-American right winger.
The real question is whether Americans will choose to change horses in midstream by voting for Kerry.
The liberals have been changing school textbooks for 10 years now. Its fucking ridiculous. China and North Korea should be the enemies but with Roh’s pro china, sunshine and rainbow garbage new generations dont know the real truth.
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